Connected Retail is an exploration and analysis of the myriad of issues that our brick and mortar commercial retail stores are facing today. Using major sports retailers as a case study, we began imagining new scenarios for the physical activation of the retail spaces.

By re-imaging the customer experience, we merge technology and promote physical spaces that are tailored high tech training spaces.

Imagine if you could order merchandise online, pick up in store while being fitted for each purchase with professional coaches and experts.

This proposal for a temporary pedestrian surface treatment in Times Square consists of a series of over-scaled bar-codes. Solid black and white bars of varying widths placed perpendicular to  Fifth Ave. on Broadway mark the newly formed pedestrian zones.
These plaza patterns, like all bar codes, are far from random. Instead of carrying identification data, they are encoded with messages of hope, dreams, love, and place, words often repeated when describing NYC.

www.nyc.gov

Working in collaboration with Frog Design, we designed a flexible beta lab where Visa HQ could test, exhibit, and share new products with the public. The concept entailed converting the space into 4 main programmatic functions: research/ every day testing space , gallery / exhibition space, special events space and conference style meeting space. The space would be outfitted with the latest interactive technology and tools.

The Lake & Stars store is a collage of geometry, symbolism, ritual, femininity, strength, color, and time. The store becomes a reflection of the Lake & Stars, and the woman who wears it. Before entering The Lake & Stars BOFFO store, pyramid risers constructed from rigged foam insulation, emerge through the facade and onto the exterior sidewalk. The pyramid risers lead the visitor inside, where the risers continue in an elevated landscape, patterned after an abstraction of ancient Mayan pyramids. Mannequins wearing the Lake & Stars collection pose and lounge on the landscape.

www.boffo-ny.org

In collaboration with MAG Architects in Poland; Our proposal addresses solutions to improve the Warsaw Police Department's negative public image through an arrangement of up to date forensics labs, technical spaces, a shooting range and flexible public space.  A public gallery and special program are arranged within the ground floor encouraging public participation. A porous perforated aluminum louvered system cloaks the exterior yielding  a more transparent and approachable police station.

in collaboration with Swis.Loc Architecture; How do new technologies and media affect the role of the traditional gallery space? We propose a new app for broadcasting and cataloging future show. During the Green3 show, three physical edifices(Green Space,Green Perspective Machine,and Green Die) will work in conjunction with the app, utilizing chroma key compositing, also known as green screening, to replace their real surfaces with digital imagery and environments submitted by artists. Ultimately, both the gallery and its app act as a conduit, giving artists a platform to reach local and global viewers.

www.swisloc.com

In collaboration with MAG Architects in Poland; Bridging what the public wants and what the public needs are essential to the ideation of this space. “rzecz” (thing) and “pospolita” (common), literally, a “common thing” inform our project reminding us that the definition of public space simply depends on  access, connection and choice. All common social and cultural threads can be programmed in the spirit of a contemporary agora. Multifaceted: it contains both hard and soft-scapes; Porous: its accessible from multiple directions. Active/ Passive: it contains active zones for circulation and passive zones for leisure.

Place making at the Rotunda depends on how its use shifts through out the day.  A submerged wooden plaza draws people from Wiecha Passage and East Wall. Linking existing retail above and below ground meanwhile adding to the pedestrian character of the promenade.  Adaptable in a variety of ways and removed from the traffic and noise; the plaza becomes an urban theater.  By day, cafes and shops spill out onto the plaza as patrons shop and enjoy lunch outdoors. By night, performances create a destination. A public play, theater in the park, film, or live musical performances promote public use and encourage public participation.

To survive, the Peace Pentagon has to dedicate 20% of its space to “high revenue” tenants, often considered  “opponents” to its member’s core beliefs. We saw this irony as an opportunity, imagining a street level podium, integrating all the programs of their high-revenue neighbors. Above, a physical gap would create a new “first floor” open to the public with a “stage” for events and rallies. Upper levels beyond house the member’s layout promoting interaction between organizations, through strategic spaces open to the main circulation. The semi transparent facade offers exposure to engage other tenants while offering a level of privacy. The ultimate goal; communal sustainability.

www.peacepentagon.org

Participants were asked to submit a 20′ x 20′ mural, on a wall slated for demolition. We reinterpreted the parameters as Architects by creating a real “trompe l’oeil”, a physical, three-dimensional experience. Using discarded pallets, we proposed a “living wall”. In the cavities of the pallets we imagined plants and soil creating a microclimate, while providing an opportunity for community participation and growth; a primary goal for NbPAC.  Between the existing wall and the new wall a change in the texture of the ground reinforce the three-dimensional experience. The visitor is sandwiched between the decay of one structure and the potential for growth and development in another.

www.nbpac.wordpress.com

Brooklyn Utopias?

In the fall and winter of 2009-2010 Brooklyn Utopias? provided a forum for artists young and old to pose questions about differing visions of an ideal Brooklyn.

et al. was commissioned to design and build the exhibition.  Pallets were chosen as the primary material. We assembled them into interlocking towers that became organizational cues for the artwork. The rough and unfinished outermost surface of the each pallet was whitewashed. This visual tie to the existing museum walls and display systems allowed us to create the defined thematic zones.

Brooklyn Historical Society

Here and Now 2008 Cranbrook Academy of Arts Graduate Degree Show

VOC – Validity Of the City

“The intention of V.O.C. is to provide a format, a meeting platform, for the analysis of New York City by its inhabitants, comminglers, passersby, and passengers. Comprised of a loosely knit group of design-minded citizens from many different countries and fields, the V.O.C. seeks not to define New York and its myriad parts in static history book fashion. Instead we seek to fine-tune our understanding of it, much like the mechanic of a luxury automobile (hydrogen fuel celled of course), to optimize its full potential as human made generative engine.” – JCH

The Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit put out a call to artists to exhibit temporary work in its newly reconfigured carriage house gallery. Our idea was to investigate connections between city and suburb through a very literal displacement of territory. By Taking the dimensions of the footprint of CAID’s Carriage House, situated in Detroit we would graft them onto a landscape on the grounds of Cranbrook Academy in the nearby suburb of Bloomfield Hills. We would extract a one foot section of earth and grass, transport it into the city, and exhibit the section of earth in the Carriage House; creating two simultaneous exhibits, two territories to be explored, and two distinct conditions.

www.thecaid.org

Archilab – 24620

This International meeting on Architecture held in May 2001 by Archilab, brought together young selected Architects from around the world to think about new conceptual strategies for housing. Manu Garza participated in 24620, a multi-media installation of a house that was sliced in Detroit, shipped, and reassembled in the Archilab courtyard in Orleans (France) to serve as a 1:1 narrative on Detroit’s Urban Decay. The house has been further de-constructed and pieces continue to travel as smaller exhibitions have unfolded in Germany, the U.K., and Korea.

www.archilab.org